In Luxembourg, ALL public transport is free for everyone.

Yes but Luxembourg is a small, wealthy, homogeneous country (cough, tax haven, cough).

Bigger countries can't afford to do that as their infrastructure costs are higher.

What do you mean by 'homogeneous' here?

This word has a long history of being used as a racist dog-whistle in discussions over why the US lacks public services.

It's not a good term to use without clarification.

Agreed, I have no idea why racial/cultural homogeneity is an argument against public services. It has always seemed to me to be a roundabout way of saying “We can’t do it in the US because minorities would ruin it”

The most comical thing is when the same people argue that countries like Canada or Switzerland have homogenous populations.

While I can see why you'd suspect the term might be used as a dogwhistle, I can see why honogenity might be an advantage here.

It's a country with very few different people and viewpoints because there's not that many people to form groups. While I certainly would never see a lack of diversity as a general goal for a country, fewer viewpoints to consider significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to get stuff done in governments. The fewer ideals you need to consider, the shorter the debates can be.

A country built up out of immigrants like the USA bring a plethora of viewpoints and cultures, all living inside one general government. This is a valuable source of cultural development and progress but the more groups you have within your borders, the more chances of friction you get and the longer politics should take; there are just more factors to take into account, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

It's not a dog whistle - it's a description of the effects of racism. Areas with homogenous populations consistently have more political support for providing social services. This is because most people have greater empathy for those that look like and act like them. There are examples of this from Japan to Finland to Utah. A significant minority population exposes the racists within a country.

Isn't the whole point of a racist dog whistle that the only people who can hear it are racists. If you are hearing dog whistles everywhere, maybe you're the dog.

> Bigger countries can't afford to do that

Bigger countries still have areas of higher density of wealth. So if that's all there is to it then we should be seeing free transit in those areas.

Larger countries can, but the political willpower isn't there.

NYC's subway was originally projected (pre-COVID) to take in $3.6 billion in fares in 2020 [0]. Some 8.4 million people live in NYC. $3.6 billion / 8.4 million residents = ~$429/resident/year would suffice to make the subway free of fares.

Note: this would be for _just_ the subway; it does not include buses/commuter rail/MTA HQ expenses. Additionally, replacing just the fares for the subway would not suffice for balancing the budget since a deficit was planned.

[0]: Page VI-123 of https://new.mta.info/document/15221

Probably somewhat lower than $429/resident/year since transit agencies spend significant resources on labor and maintenance just operating the fare collection.

(Sorry, looked but didn’t fare collection cost numbers in the MTA budget)

It might cost a bit more than that since if it were free then ridership would likely increase.

The fare recovery of New York City Transit is 47%, so the true cost to the taxpayer would be $912/resident/year using your numbers. The numbers are higher still if you scope to residents over 18.

NYC issues student metro cards from the school if you need to go more than half a mile:

https://www.schools.nyc.gov/school-life/transportation/bus-e...

Yeah, our schools would hand out green/gold metrocards, which were very coveted items (if you found an extra one on a bus that was a huge get). They'd only cover 3-6 trips, plus transfers, so it wasn't quite free, but it was often good enough.